Poverty Simulation

Poverty Simulation

I walked in and was handed a name card the read “Yomelda Yarrow.”  I sat down and met my husband, “Yuri Yarow”, who was in fact my coworker Elizabeth.  We were sitting in two chairs facing each other constituting our house for the next hour.  50 other people were being assigned an alias for the simulation, sitting in home groups around the room.   Elizabeth/Yuri and I picked up the baby dolls on our pile of information and started orienting ourselves with our situation.  We discovered that I had a job but limited English skills, Yuri received a social security check, and found the babies were our grandchildren that we had to care for (due to their mother being incarcerated for drug use).  Before we began the simulation, we were introduced to the agencies represented around the room, which we would have to interact with to survive the simulation. These included: jail, police, pawn shop, quick check cashing, mortgage company, Job and Family Services, school, grocery, bank, an interfaith organization, Community Action, and an employer.   We set off to navigate a month in poverty for the next hour, with each of the next 15 minute periods representing one week.

Anecdote Summary

The first week we were able to buy food, but I forgot my grandkids kids at school.  I chased down child services, panicked after they confiscated the grandkids, trying to explain that I just got off work.   I was in line for groceries, and I was simply late to pick them up, not neglectful.  Panic is actually pretty good word to describe the entire hour (ahem, month).    The child services worker had sympathy on me as I was speaking in broken English, due to my limited language skills.  Luckily in this situation, this incapacity helped.  30 seconds earlier, while purchasing food, the cashier noticed I couldn’t speak English well and short changed me.  I’m not good at English, but I’m not dumb.  I had to demand the correct change of “40 dollars!” three times until she laid down the correct change amount for my purchases.   Most other families weren’t so diligent, and they got ripped off everywhere from the pawn shop to the check cash place.  My family was lucky enough to have a bank account, so we didn’t have to deal with the quick cash venue.  

Even knowing the assistance system, as someone who works for the Benefit Bank, and having a basis for where to get things (utility help from community action, clothing vouchers from Interfaith), we still couldn’t make it.   Some families in the simulation (and in real life, of course) are constantly fighting the tide.  Trying to claw their way back to the top.  It was almost just as bad hovering on the edge of not making it.  There is a constant panic, a constant fear of being evicted.  One little thing could go wrong and throw the entire survival system out the window.  And I use the word “system” loosely, it ended up being more of a haphazard hastily made minute-by-minute strategy.  In the 30 seconds I had to reconvene with my husband, we quickly summarized our progress (“got autoloan paid off, got a pay check, do we have enough money for the mortgage?”) and hurriedly tried to figure out how to make it the next week (“Can you fill this out during work?  As soon as you get the kids, you have to get in line for groceries…”).  The entire simulation was stressful, chaotic, panicked.

Time

The waiting was the worst.  There are a million other places you have to go including the bank to pay your mortgage and the pawn shop to try and score some extra cash, but you have to wait in line for inordinate amounts of time to take care of basic needs.  If you are not from a low-income family, think of the DMV.  Think of those lines at every place you are trying to go.  Then, I would say more than half the time, it closes before you can get up there.  Or they tell you that you are in the wrong line. Those are absolutely awful sinking feelings.  Having waited and waited for something that you desperately need (think food or paying for electric).  When every minute truly counts in this game of survival, you literally can’t afford to be in the wrong line. 

Oftentimes when a family is working poor, trying to get by day to day without financial security, they have a “here and now” mindset.  There is no guarantee of money in the future, so the strategy is to spend everything you have right now, to alleviate some pain or try to catch up.  Planning for the future isn’t an option, because the future is so unstable.  When you are hungry now, you have to eat now.  There is no thought about budgeting or planning.  Doing the simulation as a person from a middle class upbringing, there was a bit of inner discrepancy in how I approached our fake families’ month.  I know my friend Molly, also from the middle class in real life, was in the simulation “very much preparing for the future-- my 16-year-old pregnant daughter was going to social services to prepare for her baby being born in 2 months, I was trying to budget from the start rather than prioritize and make it by week-by-week.  I really believed that there was a "right" way to manage it and if I did it well I would not only get by but would also succeed.”  I think the Yarrow family tried this approach of planning during our 30 second breaks, but it ended up turning to chaos when we didn’t have the correct verification, a store was closed, or we didn’t have enough transportation resources to get somewhere.  There was no option to organize; we just had to do it.  Problem solve on the go, as we passed each other running from agency to agency.

Public Benefits

My family wasn’t on public assistance, we were just trying to work hard, pay our bills, and keep our house.  A true picture of a working poor family.  We actually knew we could get our grandkids health insurance through social services, but we didn’t have time to go wait in line and deal with the system.  We chose food, heat, and keeping our house over health security for our grandkids.  Insurance isn’t a survival part of life, but plenty of other families did have to choose between basic needs.  They chose to wait in line for feed their families, with the hope that the next week they would have enough money to pay the mortgage (and the hope that the mortgage company would have a little mercy.) 

On Edge

My colleague Molly summed it up well: I was worried about how I was going to feed my kids that week. “Even though it was a simulation I felt panicked and guilty and worried in an hour-long simulation and I was not even the worst off .”    If the Yarrows had this much trouble navigating life with their resources in this short month, I can’t imagine a real experience.  I can imagine, though, the results.  Irritability.  Bitterness.   Stress.  And that’s not necessarily hostility aimed at any institution.  It’s just a general frustration.  Why can’t I make this work, even though I am trying to do everything right?  When they came back to evicted “homes” (overturned chairs and a big ugly sign in the simulation), they witnessed the downfall of living in poverty, the result of living for the now.  It’s so easy to not plan ahead well, to not think things through completely, to make what look like stupid decision to the outside world, because you are hungry, your kids are hungry, and you have nowhere else to turn.  Might as well eat now, because who knows when you will have money to eat again.   Nothing is ever guaranteed.  Getting a job is not guaranteed.  Keeping a job is not guaranteed.  

Poverty is Relative

I was grateful that the Yarrow family wasn’t the “worst off.”  Other families had pregnant teenagers, were getting evicted or robbed, or had no family at all for a support network.  When we did the debriefing though, it seemed like no family thought they had it worst, everyone thought that there was always someone with a more dire situation.  Poverty is truly relative.  The government sets the FPIG, and therefore the poverty line is based on income.   I would argue (as I’m sure many others serving the low-income families of America) that poverty is what you make of it.  If it’s a lack of resources, what resources does your family need to survive, and which don’t you have?  My family needed food and childcare.   Other families needed lots of help to pay utility bills, or even basic employment.  If we can’t meet our basic needs and get by day to day, that’s poverty.

Relationships and Survival

Earlier in the day we learned that low income families function around a couple of principles: relationships and survival.  Comparatively, if you look at the middle class, people from this class will function around the achievement principle.   People from the upper class function around the connections they have.  With the lower class, survival is their basic drive.  Relationships can be a force that keep them in poverty (not wanting to leave comfort zone, abandon family, etc), but relationship are also crucial to survival.   If you think about it, low income families are some of the best problem solvers.   They have to be if they want to survive.  I found myself with lowered inhibitions during the simulation.  I had to get what I had to get, and I didn’t care who I had to talk to to do it.  For example, our neighbors were telling everyone around that they would babysit for transportation passes.  When there was a week when we couldn’t send our kids to school and neither of us could stay home, we desperately needed to use this resource.  They had enough transportation passes from other families so we had to trade our stereo for a week of babysitting, but what other choice did we have?  

Again from my colleague Molly -- It really does seem like a blur now that I'm looking back, but I still can't believe that my family only ate for 2 weeks and one of those weeks we only ate because some 85-year-old man overheard me talking about my troubles and gave me $15 to buy the rest of my groceries.  I felt such gratitude in that very small gesture that it almost felt real, and more than anything I wanted to pay him back or pay it forward.

Colloquium with a Clergy

 I am doing some site recruiting in the rural areas of my region, so residents will have more options and better access to public benefits where they already “live, work, play and pray.”

Speaking of praying…

While in Springfield at a nonprofit I was referred to my contact’s church to visit as a potential site.  This isn’t uncommon, there are a good number of Christians in the non-profit world, and sometimes at the end of a site visit they will do a little “Oh by the way, here is the name and number of my church,  we already do this, this and this to help people in our community, can you talk to them about the Benefit Bank?”

So I called up the pastor I was referred to, on a whim that he might be at the church and available to meet.  He was. I went.

This was a complete cold call, so I started with the basics of Second Harvest Foodbanks and on a very surface level what the Benefit Bank is. (Think application consolidation tool, reducing barriers to public assistance, helping low income families access food assistance, etc). 

I paused to see if he had questions.  Not only did he not have any, but he had something to add to the discussion.

He pulled his Bible across the table, immediately flipped to Timothy (“one of the letters that Paul wrote…” he tells me. Thanks.)

He points his finger to the bottom of the page and reads aloud “If a man will not work, he should not eat.”

After a meaningful pause he looks up at me, and then starts explaining his views on public assistance, the sins of laziness, compassion, and liberal idealism. 

The funny thing is, I agreed with a lot of what he was saying.  The way he approached it seemed very confrontational and judgmental, but he was basically just explaining hard love.  You know, if you love someone that is addicted to a substance that is destroying them, the loving thing to do (according to him) is to not give them assistance.  Open the door, offer support and help, but don’t let them walk through that door and give handouts to let them sustain a life of destruction.  True compassion can be hard to put into practice.  Life is hard, right?  Cheating makes it easy, and handouts are cheating.

He also spoke about the current ideology of our nation, what he kept calling the liberal mindset, of REACHING OUT to people for help.  This went against his ideals work ethic: If people aren’t going to work or even try to earn something for a living, we shouldn’t just hand them free stuff.  If people are going to fall to the sins of laziness and not work, he said, that we don’t want to help them.  We want to offer a rope of help, but they won’t grab on we won’t go chasing after them. 

I think his terminology is really what got me confused.  I feel like I am always throwing around terms like “reaching out,” but not with the goal of touching and pulling in everyone (willingly or unwillingly) that I deem needs help.  Reaching out, to me, is just opening that door.  Creating awareness that there is a helping hand, there is support, there is a way out.  So when he demonized terms and ideas that I have been acting on, but in the next breath stated another solid ideal that I hold, I didn’t know what to make of it.

I concluded, about an hour and half into the conversation, that it sounded like his church would be a great referral site.  In that way, if they deemed a family/ person a “candidate” to get help from the government to aid in survival efforts, they could refer them to another Benefit Bank site that would take them through the process.

He proceeded to then ask what the next steps were to actually becoming an official site (not a referral organization).  “I need to make sure of something,” I began, trying to figure out how to word my concerns.  “If you are an official site, you can’t deny people signing up for benefits.  Anyone who comes to you, even if they don’t have a job or may perhaps seem lazy, would have to have access to your services if you are an open site.”

“Well of course!” He exclaims.  Apparently, the simple act of making the effort to collect their documents and seek out help in meeting with him would be enough on their end.  His problem comes if he has to seek people out, if he would have to “chase people down” if they didn’t come to him for help.  I explained that none of our sites “chase people down,” that most sites serve people who are coming to them anyways, and if someone misses an appointment there is no obligation on the site’s part to wrassle them up, sit them down, and make sure they get benefits.

“Good,” he says, “because we’re living in a liberally minded nation where people are trying to reach out to everyone to help…”

Do you see where I was confused?  How I agreed with what his thoughts are, but didn't?  Even the public benefits themselves are called “work support,” you can’t survive on them alone.  They are meant to help when a family is down on their luck, when they are in education, job training, or looking for a job.  I am all about walking beside someone, teaching them self-sufficiency, not giving handouts, etc.  We even spoke today about the plight of the working poor.  He pointed out that even though the Bible says Christians should help the poor, the definition of “poor” should be seen as those who can’t work, not those who won’t work.

He did ask if he could pray at the end of our meeting.  I obliged, and I spent a couple minutes listening to a heartfelt prayer of a man trying to help his neighbors according to scripture, a man with strong opinions, a big heart, lots of energy, and a man who has given me a lot to think about.

What do YOU think about the Christian/scriptural basics of helping the “poor” in our nation?

Training Oberservation

Can't...stuff...more....information...into my head. I am sitting in my second training observation today, as preparation to take the reins and train my very own group of fledgling OBB counselors next week. Please keep in mind, this is a 6 hour training. Six. Hours. I currently have 8 pages of supplemental notes to help me through the guidebook. Jessica Mays, the regional coordinator for Southeast Ohio is actually facilitating this training in our Direct Service Office in downtown Columbus. I am mainly writing down her jokes to use in my trainings, as I am not witty, and these trainings have a tendency to put people to sleep. (I'm not kidding, at every training I have been to at least one person is conked out, unconscious, or at least nodding heavily for a couple of minutes. Fun to watch.) So I need entertaining material. What do you guys think of this one Jessica used?
“Has anyone ever had to do the FAFSA? Scale of 1-10, how awesome was it? I found it to be about minus 3, personally”

I promise, it's funny in person.

It also illustrates the importance of the Benefit Bank. Every time I learn more about all the benefits, how you apply for them and who administers them, it seems more daunting for people who need them. The Benefit Bank helps people apply so they have access to federal money to spend HERE IN OHIO to boost local economies. Beware, I am becoming a walking billboard for OBB. Only because it's so fantastic!

Faith Mission

Yesterday I went to visit Faith Mission, which despite the fact that it is mainly housed in a neat old church downtown and displays pictures of Jesus like this one : (JesusNeedsNewPR picture), informs me that their services are not faith based. They are doing a great job of sheltering and feeding strangers, so they are practicing some good doctrine anyways. In reality, they are going above and beyond servicing their community. In addition to sheltering as many homeless men and women as they can at night, they serve 3 meals a day, provide a computer/phone bank, help people sign up for public benefits with the Benefit Bank (YAY!), and, get this: have a fully equipped vision, dental, and medical care facility. I was floored when I saw the little offices complete with waiting rooms, dental chairs, and those scary eye puff machines. All staffed by volunteer medical providers in the area. Columbus residents, I am so proud of you. This is fantastic stuff!

The only problem, my guide at Faith Mission tells me, is that there is a waiting list every night for beds. This is not a unique situation, every single other shelter in Columbus has people on the street waiting to get in. Every night. The shelters are struggling to build their capacity to meet the needs of their community. It’s funny, they are seeing an increase in the number of people needing help. So are a lot of other emergency help sites across the city. Unemployment checks are also simultaneously to this phenomenon stopping being administered to people who can’t find jobs. It’s funny. And by funny, I hope you know I mean funny in a not-so-much-funny-but-really-sad way.

See this article for more information about losing benefits currently.

'A' for effort to Faith Mission and other organizations like them, tirelessly working to serve the community.